Play Time: Surry Works To Send Reward Band

SURRY — Hard work is a rule of the Surry County High School Band. After all, the members claim to represent the standard by which all other bands measure themselves.

The 16 awards the band won this year came from hours upon hours of practice - after school and on weekends - not from taking it easy.

So when the Surry County School Board told the band there was no money to pay the band's way to New Orleans to participate in Mardi Gras parades, the parents and boosters decided to take a lesson from the band - do it the hard way and raise the money themselves.

The Band Boosters, a band parent and supporter organization, is trying to raise more than $14,000 by Jan. 28 to pay for the 51-member band to march in Mardi Gras parades.

Band members and parents had gathered in L.P. Jackson Middle School on Jan. 12 for a school board meeting when they learned the bad news. When band director Alvin Wilson presented the band's invitation to three Mardi Gras parades, members of the band boosters said the board members and Superintendent M. Laverne Daniels began talking about Standards of Learning tests instead of Mardi Gras.

"We were looking at them like, `This is about a trip; why are we talking about test scores?' '' said booster and parent Sheila Wooden.

We know all about the problems with the SOL scores, Wooden said. But the band members aren't the only students at the schools and who knows, he said, the scores of band members may be higher than the school results.

Daniels recommended against the trip, and the board agreed.

"They were crushed," said booster Sheila Pettaway. Many of the band members cried after the meeting.

Booster and parent Kathy Crocker said that if one of the parents hadn't asked the board about the trip later in the meeting, ``then we'd have left there thinking they said no because of tests.''

But board members told the parents it was because they didn't have the funds to pay for the trip. The School Board found itself more than $400,000 in the red in October. So far, they haven't been able to figure out where the money is and the Board of Supervisors won't pay for an audit.

Board member Roy Lane said the band has performed well this year and the board would love to see them take the trip. "But," he said, "we are working with a deficit and there are other things already budgeted."

The board did say it would have money available next year - an answer that didn't sit well with the boosters.

"What if they aren't invited next year?" said booster and parent Carmen Griffin. "If you have the money and nowhere to go, you may as well put a match to it."

And what about seniors, Wooden said. Next year will be too late for her son Kendall. "My son went from a D student to a B student while in the band getting all these trophies," she said. "He held a job and pulled up his grades."

Drum major Antwan Bailey won every competition he participated in this year and said he would love to take the band to a nationwide audience, but he understands the board's financial problems. "I've never been outside the state as a drum major," he said. "I want to; I want to so bad."

Parents would pay their children's ways, Griffin said, but many parents aren't financially stable. "It's after Christmas," she said. "It's after that big ice storm. People have had to make repairs to their homes. Some of them can't afford that."

And to make matters worse, Griffin said, "some parents have more than one child in the band. That's why we have to raise these funds. We can't afford to leave one child."

Pettaway said, "It's not a band without all of them."

On Sunday, the boosters hand-delivered letters to churches in and around Surry. They've also contacted local television stations and businesses. They are also looking into other fund-raisers, such as dances and food sales.

"Even if we're not able to raise the money so they can make the trip," Carmen said, "we may take a shorter trip with the funds we did raise. They deserve some type of reward."

- Judith Malveaux can be reached at 357-6392 or 247-4926 or by e-mail at jmalveaux@dailypress.com

NEW ORLEANS

* To donate to the Surry County High School band trip, contact Carmen Griffen at (804) 834-8342 or 267-2558 or mail contributions to the Band Boosters at Surry County High School, 1675 Hollybush Road, Dendron, Va. 23839.